The Parti Quebecois moves to execute Parizeau’s vision

PQ leader Pauline Marois responds to questions during a campaign stop on Monday in Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, Que.

Photograph by: Paul Chiasson/THE CANADIAN PRESS
, Postmedia News

The ROC (rest of Canada) continues to mosey along in a half-disinterested, grumpy haze, as Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois and her chief strategist, Jean-Francois Lisée, proceed to methodically cobble together the pillars of a plan first articulated by separatist premier Jacques Parizeau on the night of Oct. 30, 1995, just after his side lost the second Quebec sovereignty referendum by a hair’s breadth.

“On va parler de nous!,” Parizeau roared at the outset of his concession speech, at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal. “Let’s talk about us! Sixty per cent of usvoted yes!” (translation mine). The word “us” in this context meant old-stock, mainly white francophones descended from French settlers – about 80 per cent of the province’s population. It excludes allophones, immigrants whose first language is neither English nor French. It excludes anglophones.

Then came the bit that would cause Parizeau to resign, the very next day. “It’s true that we were beaten,” he shrugged. “But by what, really? By money, and ethnic votes.” He added this line, of particular interest today. “So that means, next time, rather than 60 or 61 per cent who vote yes, we’ll be 63 or 64 per cent, and it will pass! That’s all!”

The arithmetic of Quebec separation is devastatingly simple. Eighty per cent of Quebec’s eight million people, roughly speaking, are old-stock francophones. Just under 10 per cent are anglophone. The remainder are allophone. As Parizeau noted that night in 1995, a clear majority of old-stock Quebecers had opted to make their province a country. But because allophones and anglophones overwhelmingly voted to remain Canadian, and because a very significant minority of francophones, 40 per cent, did as well, the “Yes” side lost. It was an exceedingly near thing, with just 50.38 per cent overall voting no, a margin of about 54,000 votes.

The separatists’ strategy today, it would appear, is to take both money and the “ethnic vote” out of the equation, just as Parizeau suggested, and through Herculean effort, push old-stock support for separation from where it currently sits, at around 50 per cent, to 63 or 65 per cent, which would in turn push overall support for sovereignty above the putatively magical threshold of 50 per cent. Marois’s proposed charter of Quebec values was the signal that immigrant communities were being summarily written off; media magnate Pierre Karl Péladeau’s blockbuster recruitment, the signal that “money” is being brought in-house. It is an unscrupulous strategy, but not unclever.

Lisée, who was Parizeau’s right-hand man in 1995 and is Marois’s right-hand man now (though Péladeau may have something to say about that, before long) is, among other things, a fine writer. In a blog post timed to coincide with the media magnate’s political debut, Lisée acknowledged that he and Péladeau are on opposing sides of the spectrum — he to the left, Péladeau, of course, to the right. The latter has long been among Quebec’s most conservative economic voices; his conglomerate, Quebecor, has a long history of union-thrashing. But, Lisée argues, Quebec nationalism is a broad project; it should include disparate voices, and indeed can only succeed if it does. Translation: Money is in.

This is potentially Kryptonite for Francois Legault’s Coalition Avenir Quebec, which now holds 18 seats in the National Assembly, is business-minded and fiscally conservative. If Péladeau’s candidacy does not go supernova — still an open question — he stands to become the de facto new standard-bearer for the province’s business class. The values charter, with its unabashed appeal to old-stock Quebecers’ ethnic nationalism, also can be expected to bite into CAQ support, which is conservative across the board. The one-two punch could be all Marois needs to clinch her majority, even if the Liberals under Philippe Couillard retain their current seats. Marois only needs nine seats to pull it off.

Here’s why this should cause all Canadians, and not just national-unity-debate geeks, to take notice: Should Marois succeed, the referendum can be expected to take place before the 2015 federal election. Marois, Lisée, Péladeau and the rest can read polls. What better time to hold a plebiscite than when the governing party in Ottawa holds just five Quebec seats? Why risk facing a new federal government under Liberal Justin Trudeau or New Democrat Tom Mulcair, either of which would have much greater federalist heft in Quebec than the Harper Tories have now, which is zilch? Why wait for your grizzled supporters to get another year older?

It is nothing like a foregone conclusion that the separatists could win a third referendum; Fifteen percentage points is a very steep hill to climb. But they’d be working within the context of a new coalition, never tried before, between rural, urban, left and right-wing old-stock Quebecers, just as Parizeau envisioned in ‘95. It would be foolish to dismiss the threat this poses to the country. This is not your father’s PQ; they are operating with greater guile, craft and coldness than in the past.

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